ASK MOHAI: What might have Seattle’s first Thanksgiving been like?

Twice a month, we ask the experts at the Museum of History and Industry for a tidbit about Seattle’s history. Here’s what MOHAI’s Director Leonard Garfield has in today’s installment.

What might have Seattle’s first Thanksgiving been like?

Every Seattle school kid knows that the original Thanksgiving happened nearly 400 years ago, and a continent away. But Seattle’s first European American settlers could well have claimed the holiday as their own.

In November, 1851, two centuries after the Pilgrims gave thanks with their Native American neighbors, a small band of settlers landed on the wind-swept shores of Alki Beach in West Seattle and faced the daunting prospects of a winter with scant shelter and almost none of the skills needed to survive.

That they did in fact survive and eventually thrive was due to a remarkable display of genuine hospitality from the First People of the region–the Duwamish and Suquamish, who made their home in central Puget Sound for thousands of years.

According to their own accounts, the pioneer Denny Party survived that first wet, cold fall in Puget Sound only because the Duwamish and Suquamish instructed the young newcomers in the practicalities of making a home in what seemed a wilderness. These young and inexperienced settlers from such landlocked locations as Illinois and upstate New York were initially dependant on the Native community for such basic needs as transportation, foodstuffs and building materials. And while there is no record that they all sat down at a formal feast to give thanks, we do know that the settlers felt profoundly thankful, naming their settlement in gratitude to Chief Sealth, the tribal leader whose people did so much to welcome the newcomers.

Thanksgiving itself was not yet established as a national holiday when the Denny Party arrived on Alki, but if it had been, what might have been included in that first Thanksgiving Day meal in Seattle in November 1851? Not turkey or cranberries, alas. Salmon, perhaps. And if the settlers had to choose one menu item to symbolize their indebtedness, it would likely be clam juice.

Facing the threat of malnutrition and illness in a community with no cows or goats, and thus no milk, the youngest pioneer settler, an infant named Rolland Denny, was nurtured to health by the juice of clams, thanks to the Denny’s Native neighbors, who knew the broth would allow a young American generation to live to maturity.

So when we give thanks this holiday, and recount that original gathering in Massachusetts, we would do well to pause a bit longer to remember the coming together of the Duwamish and Suquamish and their new American neighbors during that dreary November of 1851. While ensuing decades would damage that partnership, the early tradition of friendship is a heritage worthy of our thanks.